Urban living has revitalized some Columbus neighborhoods. Condos, restaurants and shops attract new residents and visitors. But there’s a downside: parking. It’s becoming more and more of a headache for the downtown area’s thriving neighborhoods. WOSU takes a look at the parking crunch and a possible solution.

The growing popularity of urban living has revitalized some Columbus neighborhoods. Condos, restaurants and shops attract new residents and visitors. But there’s a downside: parking. It’s becoming more and more of a headache for the downtown area’s thriving neighborhoods. WOSU takes a look at the parking crunch and a possible solution.

Most agree having a parking problem in parts of the city is “a good thing.” It means neighborhoods are thriving.

But for people who live in places like the Short North or German Village, finding a place to park their cars can be a pain.

Hairstylist Adam Bahgat works at Rage Salon on Whittier Street in German Village. Bahgat used to live near the salon, but he moved away. One reason: parking.

“We did have a one-spot driveway which was more of a blessing than most people in the neighborhood had,” he said.

But when it came to hosting guests, Bahgat said the conversations went something like this: “Well if you drive down three or four blocks that way, you might be able to find a spot over there.”

It’s a common story in trendy areas.

To try to help, the city, years ago, created residential permit parking zones. Residents buy a permit from the city for $25 a year and they can park in their neighborhood. There are no assigned spaces.

It worked, so other neighborhoods wanted them. Today, the city has issued 1,570 passes to residents of German Village, and the neighborhoods adjacent to the Short North: Italian and Victorian Villages.

But there’s still a parking crunch.

Marc Conte is a researcher at Capital Crossroads and Discovery Special Improvements District. He has studied parking in the Short North.

“What’s been happening over the years is as one block will get permit parking, that’ll sort of shift visitors to the next block, and then that block will get [permit parking]. And then you keep shifting and shifting,” Conte said.

Conte and his team have submitted the study and recommendations to the city.

“I don’t see any reduction in permitted spaces, as a matter of fact, I see us expanding them,” said Patti Austin, Columbus’ Public Service Department traffic management administrator.

Austin said the city is considering pay-to-park zones in areas near the core of busy business districts, like the Short North.

“Anybody who would park on those streets would pay,” she said.

Here’s how it would work: Instead of having some streets with free parking and spotty permitted residential zones with different restrictions on each block, large sections of neighborhoods would be pay-to-park. Visitors would pay an hourly rate and residents who purchase a city permit would be excluded from that hourly rate.

“The flexibility it gives the residents is if you’re having a party in the evening or…if you need someone to work on your washer and dryer, they can just pay the hourly rate to park,” Austin said. “Now, in some areas, if you don’t have visitor tag nobody can park there except a resident.”

The city still has to approve the recommendations. A final proposal is expected in early February.

Austin said, initially, there will be a trial in the busiest part of the Short North.

“There may be a neighborhood that’s close to the business district that’s so popular that, you know, you can park there, but it’s really going to cost you because we’re going to discourage you from parking in that area.”

Peak parking hours would cost more. Streets farther out would cost less. The hope is, price-conscious visitors would not stay as long, creating more turnover of parking spaces.

Austin said there’s no simple solution, and there are logistics and considerations before this type of system can be implemented.

“If you don’t get the steps right, you’re going to inadvertently hurt somebody,” she said. “I will use the example of, if you raise all the prices on High Street at the meters, but you haven’t figured out how to accommodate employee parking yet, you’re going to really hurt those employees who used to park at meters or park on the adjacent metered streets.”

Marc Conte said the plan could help, but it won’t eliminate the crunch because neighborhoods like German Village and Short North weren’t built for lots of cars.

“It’s not going to be limitless parking. People are going to have to start paying. Or if they want free parking, they’re going to have to start walking further to get to their final destination,” he said.

Or they could consider Sara Froelich’s strategy. She lives near Lindy’s restaurant in German village, which on most nights is hopping, so she competes with Lindy’s valet parking service. But she devised a plan to ensure parking for her and her friends that seems to work.

“I’ve made friends with the valet boys at Lindy’s. So, you know, I can bake some cookies and they hook me up with some spots,” she chuckles.

]]>http://wosu.org/2012/news/2015/01/22/pay-park-zones-answer-short-north-parking-crunch/feed/1Columbus Parking,german village,Italian Village,short north,victorian villageUrban living has revitalized some Columbus neighborhoods. Condos, restaurants and shops attract new residents and visitors. But there’s a downside: parking. It’s becoming more and more of a headache for the downtown area’s thriving neighborhoods.Urban living has revitalized some Columbus neighborhoods. Condos, restaurants and shops attract new residents and visitors. But there’s a downside: parking. It’s becoming more and more of a headache for the downtown area’s thriving neighborhoods. WOSU takes a look at the parking crunch and a possible solution.WOSU Newsno4:32Bustling Urban Neighborhoods Create Parking Tensionhttp://wosu.org/2012/news/2013/07/12/bustling-urban-neighborhoods-create-parking-tension/
http://wosu.org/2012/news/2013/07/12/bustling-urban-neighborhoods-create-parking-tension/#commentsFri, 12 Jul 2013 09:00:09 +0000Mandie Trimblehttp://wosu.org/2012/news/?p=54137

The growing urban parking crunch is just one side effect of living and working in a bustling urban neighborhood.

A new battle is brewing at Columbus City Hall, itâ€™s a fight over parking spaces. People who live in busy, popular neighborhoods want the city to restrict some street parking to residents. Just this week German Village residents failed to get resident parking permits. As WOSU reports, the growing parking crunch is just one side effect of living and working in a bustling urban neighborhood.

â€œYou do a lot of circling.”

Solutions to parking congestion
in Columbus

Randall Bowman of the City of Columbus
talks to 89.7 NPR News about solutions
for fixing the parking congestion problem
in popular Columbus neighborhoods.

That’s how Beth Menduni described her visits the Short North. The Hilliard woman has developed a strategy for finding a parking spot.

“You do a lot of, kind of, stalking people to see when theyâ€™re going to leave the restaurants or go into a parking lot. Or follow them to their cars? Exactly. Youâ€™ve done that Iâ€™m sure. Yes, I have. Iâ€™m not ashamed to admit it because I love being in the Short North, but the parking is definitely an issue.â€

As homeowners restored stately Victorian Village homes, and as more and more restaurants and apartments open in the Short North, the fight for parking spaces has grown. And German Village is, well, German Village â€“ which has always had a parking problem.

Victorian and Italian Villages have seen a 75 percent population increase since 2000 â€“ weâ€™re talking 3,100 more people.

That means more cars and those cars need a place to park.

Then you add in events like ComFest and the situation only gets worse for neighbors, workers and for people like Tim Brown of Westerville, who likes to visit the short north but â€œnot as much as [he would] like because of the parking.â€

Tim was lucky this day, he arrived early and found a meter.

â€œI knew it was the only chance Iâ€™d have to find a place to park, and actually I got a meter which kind of surprised me,” Brown said.

Short North has about 600 non-restricted parking spaces â€“ meters, non-metered spaces and lots.

A new garage is under construction just off High Street, but many of its spaces are for condos next door. And plans for a boutique hotel and adjacent office building just north of The Cap will wipe out two parking lots. The office building will have a parking garage, but it may not be enough to alleviate the crunch.

While Short North has some space to build parking garages, German Village does not. Alleyways used to serve as extra parking until the city put a stop to that last year.

German Village Societyâ€™s Shiloh Todorov said the move put about 65 more cars back on the street.

â€œAnd so that has set off some other tension around places where those cars have been displaced.â€

The change has prompted some in German Village to want to restrict some on-street parking to residents.

Schmidtâ€™s Sausage Haus, nestled at the end of Kossuth Street, has a couple of small lots for its customers. But many still park on the street, and president Geoff Schmidt calls permit parking a slippery slope.

â€œAnd all of a sudden the whole village becomes a permit parking area…Pretty soon that gets out, it gets around, and all of a sudden youâ€™re not a friendly touristic place anymore,” Schmidt said.

For diners visiting German Village or Short North restaurants, their heroes often are valets.

On this rainy evening at Haiku in the Short North, Premier Valet Parking president Ryan Gale trains a new valet.

Gale has valet service in all of the cityâ€™s hotspots. While his employees are heroes to diner, they sometimes are at odds with neighbors and face abuse.

If asked, Gale said he will move a car valeted in front of a house. And some residents have been receptive to that.

â€œOther times theyâ€™re angry. I mean, we had one valet get doused with a water hose,” Gale said. “And it really wasnâ€™t a nice time to get doused with a water hose. So we try to work as cohesively as possible.â€

For all the complaints about parking, Gale said itâ€™s the price of popularity.

“If you have to park a block away in the Short North, I consider that a victory,” he said. “And thatâ€™s the beauty of all this, is youâ€™ve got culture to walk around to see, youâ€™ve got places to enjoy…like thatâ€™s the beauty of it, you get to walk through it. You donâ€™t just get out at the front door of the restaurant you to go to and go eat there and come back, you walk around.â€

An official tapped with trying keep everyone happy is Cleve Ricksecker. He directs the agency monitoring downtown development.

He said the cityâ€™s historic neighborhoods were not built to handle two cars for every home. They were built before there were cars. Thatâ€™s what makes them so attractive.

â€œIf there were an attempt made to accommodate cars it would destroy the character of the area.â€

Ricksecker said people who live in urban neighborhoods are adjusting, slowly.

â€œPeople expect to drive, you know, five blocks down to go to the grocery store, or drive to High Street five blocks away, get a parking space in front of their house. These neighborhoods canâ€™t be treated like a suburban apartment complex anymore. And people need to learn how to live in an urban space.â€

Ricksecker said thereâ€™s no clear answer for the parking issues in the historical neighborhoods. The city continues to work on it, and drivers continue to circle the block.

]]>http://wosu.org/2012/news/2013/07/12/bustling-urban-neighborhoods-create-parking-tension/feed/3german village,parkingc,short north,urban parking,victorian villageThe growing urban parking crunch is just one side effect of living and working in a bustling urban neighborhood.The growing urban parking crunch is just one side effect of living and working in a bustling urban neighborhood.WOSU Newsno5:08King Lincoln – A Neighborhood Rich in Diversity, Historyhttp://wosu.org/2012/news/2011/04/19/king-lincoln-a-neighborhood-rich-in-diversity-history/
http://wosu.org/2012/news/2011/04/19/king-lincoln-a-neighborhood-rich-in-diversity-history/#commentsTue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000Ed Lentzhttp://wosu.org/2012/news/2011/04/19/king-lincoln-a-neighborhood-rich-in-diversity-history/

WOSU-TV airs the third documentary in its series - Columbus Neighborhoods. Tonight's film tells the story of The King-Lincoln neighborhood, just east of downtown. WOSU commentator and local historian Ed Lentz looks back on the neighborhood which has been the center of African American culture in Columbus

By the time I met Nimrod Allen in 1969, he had seen a lot of America and Columbus at both its best and worst.

1969 was a pivotal year in the African American story in Ohio’s capital city. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior had been assassinated the year before. A year later tensions still ran high as Left and Right, young and old, black and white clashed over cultures and conflicts both here and abroad. In July, 1969, a capital city which had generally avoided the violent “long, hot summers” of the 1960′s saw the Main Street corridor on the Near East Side ripped by violence.

Dr. Nimrod Booker Allen was 83 years old that summer when I talked with him at length. The son of a minister, Allen had studied at Yale before deciding to become a social worker. The first Director of the Columbus Urban League in 1917, Nimrod Allen had led the organization for decades until his retirement in 1954.

He had seen it all – the emergence of the Near East Side and the despair and triumph of the Great Depression and World War II. Then the Civil Rights Movement came along with the increasing militancy of black America in the 1960′s.

I asked him at one point how he was able to respond with equanimity to criticism that groups like the Urban League – which stood for peaceful cooperative effort by black and white – were counter-productive and out of date. He simply smiled and quietly responded that he had worked for most of his life to bring people together to find solutions to the problems they faced in housing, education and employment.

And in his view, working together was a very good thing. There was a time, not all that long ago, when black and white in Columbus did not mix all that much. Black people simply were expected to stay in their neighborhood. Prior to that they did not even have a neighborhood.

Columbus was established as the new state capital in 1812. As a center of transportation and trade as well as government, the town had more than its share of available jobs.

Unlike the Germans or Irish, black Columbus did not have a commercial or residential center. People lived close to where they worked – and sometimes literally in the place they worked – until shortly after the Civil War. By the early 1870′s, an identifiable black commercial strip had developed east along Long Street for a couple of blocks.

A school for black children and a few black churches could be found here as well. To the south was the center of town. To the north was the Irish community centered on both sides of the rail yards. Over the next several decades, the black commercial area moved east on Long Street as the areas north and south of it were built out and became part of the central business district.

By 1922, Nimrod Allen would write an article for a national magazine describing East Long Street as the heart of black Columbus. In many ways, interestingly enough after almost 90 years, it still is. Nimrod Allen taught all of us in Columbus a lot until his death in 1977.

He taught me that what was remarkable about black and white America was not how far apart they still were, but how close they had come together – not how much there was reason to despair – but how much reason there was for optimism. In the face of some of the worst discrimination imaginable, Nimrod Allen never lost hope.